Yes, the dent at Ashton Gate hurt - but there’s nothing to be gaining in dwelling on it and picking at the scabs. It’s time to move on.

Defeat is an occupational hazard in football, even for the best teams, and there is no reason to exaggerate the impact of a single result.

One slip up after nine games unbeaten is disappointing but isn’t a disaster and it doesn’t flag up any fatal flaws in the team’s make-up or mentality no matter what the habitual doom-mongers say.

It is churlish to try to use the first defeat in two months to vent stored up spleen and to try to score points against a manager, a team, a style and a system that has taken the team to top of the table in almost mechanical fashion.

The position remains remarkably positive. Boro are top, two points clear of second placed Hull with a game to play and the Tigers to come to Teesside.

And, despite the slip, a week ago they were five points clear of third place and now they are six - and with a game in hand - so they have actually slightly improved their position strategically.

But that doesn’t mean the defeat should be dismissed with a shrug.

There are lessons to be learned: that no game is easy in the Championship and that if Boro are to succeed they must be at their best in every single match,

Also that even what looks a yawning gap can very quickly be eroded. The upturn of form of Hull and Burnley has turned up the heat on Boro and had Derby not lost then the summit squeeze would really be on now.

This slip and the harsh reality of its potential impact on the table should sharpen minds inside the club. Every team has stumbles and that is understandable and forgivable - but we can’t afford too many.

The Bristol game must be a wake up call. It should be used as motivation for the players, the club and the fans to bounce back and put together another rousing run of the manner that followed the previous defeat.

Boro last lost in the league - and last conceded a goal - in the bad day at the office 3-0 humbling away at Hull back in the first week of November.

That was followed by eight wins and a draw plus a second tier record run of clean sheets, a string of results that boosted confidence and put Boro in pole position in the promotion race.

It included triumph at hoodoo ground Ipswich, home wins over play-off pretenders Birmingham and Burnley, victory at previously unbeaten Brighton and then a dismantling of chief rivals Derby at the Riverside.

It Boro can react with anything like the same zeal in the next nine games then they will have taken a massive step towards promotion.

In the coming run of nine games Boro play five at home and four away and face none of the current top eight.

At home they face Forest, Blackburn, Cardiff and Wolves boosted by an exceptional Riverside record of only one league defeat this season and only two in a calendar year.

Boro have fantastic pedigrees against both Forest and Wolves, neither of who have won on Teesside for decades.

They also travel to struggling Leeds and Fulham, plus they need to slot in games at MK Dons and Blackburn.

On paper that is a far gentler fixture flurry than the last nine games were.

And the schedule eases a bit too after a frantic opening to the year. Boro have played four games in 16 days and have looked a little leggy and laboured in the last two, which have been long distance away games with overnight stays and so little time to tactically prepare in the exacting detail the boss would like because of all the travelling.

But now Boro have a full week of preparation before a home game then potentially a blank weekend after that before another home fixture.

That will give the players time to recharge their batteries and for Aitor Karanka to bed in any new boys and refocus the squad before the next gruelling flurry of fixtures.